NZ Customs seizes pirated Raavan DVDs
Auckland: Attempts by a local Indian video hire business to hijack the release of the much anticipated Bollywood film Raavan were thwarted recently when the New Zealand Customs intercepted a shipment of over 1700 pirated copies of the film.
Raavan opened worldwide to widespread acclaim on June 18. The film, by critically acclaimed filmmaker Mani Ratnam, stars Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai and Vikram in the lead roles. The film's score and soundtrack is composed by Academy Award winner A.R. Rahman of Slumdog Millionaire fame.
The lawyer acting for the film’s distributor in New Zealand, Claire Tompkins of intellectual property law firm James & Wells, said the interception of the DVDs showed the immense value to be gained in obtaining protection for trade marks and copyright via the filing of border protection notices with Customs.
Tompkins’ client received an anonymous tip-off in relation to the shipment suspected to be arriving on a flight on the film’s opening weekend. This led to urgent instructions to file a Copyright Customs Notice on the preceding Friday and an issue by Customs of a border alert to all frontline inspections officers to be on the lookout for copies of the film over the weekend. This resulted in the DVDs being located and detained that weekend, Ms Tompkins told Indian Weekender.
Raavan is believed to have grossed $60,000 over its opening weekend in New Zealand, making it the 3rd highest grossing weekend for a Bollywood film in the last year. Greg Denning, General Manager of Icon Film Distributon said that “If it was not for the quick action of the Customs officials in spreading the alert and ultimately locating the pirated product I hate to imagine what would have happened to the box office results.”
There are as yet no officially released DVDs of Raavan anywhere in the world, as the film has only just been released theatrically and the official DVD release will follow in due course.
Says Denning, “the sale of pirated DVDs impacts more individuals in society than most people would imagine. The urban myth is that piracy only affects the film studios, movie stars and big business who are perceived to have plenty of money anyway.
"In reality piracy affects everyone from cinemas, legitimate DVD retailers, film distributors and all of their respective staff from the cleaners, couriers, and even the teenagers working behind the candy bar. These businesses employ a lot of people and the eradication of piracy would arguably see even more jobs created as a result of the increased legitimate trade”.
Tompkins says that many recent estimates put the trade in fake (or counterfeit) goods at 10% of total worldwide trade and that the number of counterfeit goods available in New Zealand is on the increase.
In the year to June 2009 Customs detained over 270,000 counterfeit items. Says Tompkins, “DVDs have been a problem at one time accounting for over 8% of all DVD movies sold in New Zealand. More recently most movie piracy has moved to the internet via peer-to-peer websites, so a large shipment of actual DVDs is unusual. But the discovery of this shipment shows that importations of the physical product are still occurring and need to be protected against”.
Border control remains New Zealand's most important weapon against counterfeit goods because most counterfeit goods are not manufactured here and must enter the country from overseas. Tompkins says that “there are a number of actions that a brand owner or distributor can take to stop counterfeiters. Probably the most effective and cost-efficient is preparing and filing Border Protection/Customs Notices with Customs.
Jennifer Litchfield-Fernley, an Investigator with Customs in their Fraud and Prohibitions Unit assisted with the interception. She said “It was a great result. Without Customs Notices in place we are unable to detain pirated or counterfeit copies, even if we becomes aware of them, which can be very frustrating. We often have importers searching the Customs database to see what Notices are lodged and then deliberately avoiding those items. Actually in this case the importer said he had done just that, but the Raavan Notice was filed before the DVDs arrived in the country so we were able to stop them.”
Auckland: Attempts by a local Indian video hire business to hijack the release of the much anticipated Bollywood film Raavan were thwarted recently when the New Zealand Customs intercepted a shipment of over 1700 pirated copies of the film. Raavan opened worldwide to widespread acclaim on June...
Auckland: Attempts by a local Indian video hire business to hijack the release of the much anticipated Bollywood film Raavan were thwarted recently when the New Zealand Customs intercepted a shipment of over 1700 pirated copies of the film.
Raavan opened worldwide to widespread acclaim on June 18. The film, by critically acclaimed filmmaker Mani Ratnam, stars Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai and Vikram in the lead roles. The film's score and soundtrack is composed by Academy Award winner A.R. Rahman of Slumdog Millionaire fame.
The lawyer acting for the film’s distributor in New Zealand, Claire Tompkins of intellectual property law firm James & Wells, said the interception of the DVDs showed the immense value to be gained in obtaining protection for trade marks and copyright via the filing of border protection notices with Customs.
Tompkins’ client received an anonymous tip-off in relation to the shipment suspected to be arriving on a flight on the film’s opening weekend. This led to urgent instructions to file a Copyright Customs Notice on the preceding Friday and an issue by Customs of a border alert to all frontline inspections officers to be on the lookout for copies of the film over the weekend. This resulted in the DVDs being located and detained that weekend, Ms Tompkins told Indian Weekender.
Raavan is believed to have grossed $60,000 over its opening weekend in New Zealand, making it the 3rd highest grossing weekend for a Bollywood film in the last year. Greg Denning, General Manager of Icon Film Distributon said that “If it was not for the quick action of the Customs officials in spreading the alert and ultimately locating the pirated product I hate to imagine what would have happened to the box office results.”
There are as yet no officially released DVDs of Raavan anywhere in the world, as the film has only just been released theatrically and the official DVD release will follow in due course.
Says Denning, “the sale of pirated DVDs impacts more individuals in society than most people would imagine. The urban myth is that piracy only affects the film studios, movie stars and big business who are perceived to have plenty of money anyway.
"In reality piracy affects everyone from cinemas, legitimate DVD retailers, film distributors and all of their respective staff from the cleaners, couriers, and even the teenagers working behind the candy bar. These businesses employ a lot of people and the eradication of piracy would arguably see even more jobs created as a result of the increased legitimate trade”.
Tompkins says that many recent estimates put the trade in fake (or counterfeit) goods at 10% of total worldwide trade and that the number of counterfeit goods available in New Zealand is on the increase.
In the year to June 2009 Customs detained over 270,000 counterfeit items. Says Tompkins, “DVDs have been a problem at one time accounting for over 8% of all DVD movies sold in New Zealand. More recently most movie piracy has moved to the internet via peer-to-peer websites, so a large shipment of actual DVDs is unusual. But the discovery of this shipment shows that importations of the physical product are still occurring and need to be protected against”.
Border control remains New Zealand's most important weapon against counterfeit goods because most counterfeit goods are not manufactured here and must enter the country from overseas. Tompkins says that “there are a number of actions that a brand owner or distributor can take to stop counterfeiters. Probably the most effective and cost-efficient is preparing and filing Border Protection/Customs Notices with Customs.
Jennifer Litchfield-Fernley, an Investigator with Customs in their Fraud and Prohibitions Unit assisted with the interception. She said “It was a great result. Without Customs Notices in place we are unable to detain pirated or counterfeit copies, even if we becomes aware of them, which can be very frustrating. We often have importers searching the Customs database to see what Notices are lodged and then deliberately avoiding those items. Actually in this case the importer said he had done just that, but the Raavan Notice was filed before the DVDs arrived in the country so we were able to stop them.”
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